ZOOLOGY 



MARINE ZOOLOGY 



DURING the summer months for the last twenty years I have 

 lived on board my yacht the Glimpse more or less in Essex 

 waters, and have devoted much of my time to the study of the 

 marine animals, either by dredging or collecting on shore. I 

 have also done much from the deck of the yacht, which has enabled me 

 to obtain various specimens floating in the tide. 



Having thus had a somewhat unusual experience, I venture to do 

 the best I can for my subject, although I feel that it is very incomplete, 

 and that a great deal remains to be learned both as to specific identity 

 and local distribution. 



If in years gone by I had known that it would have been my lot 

 to write an essay on the marine invertebrata of the coast of Essex I 

 should have collected the necessary material and studied several groups 

 of animals which I have almost entirely neglected. My aim has chiefly 

 been to find out how to kill certain animals in a fully expanded condition, 

 and permanently to preserve them with their natural colours, either as 

 transparent lantern slides, mounted in Canada balsam, or kept in glass 

 vessels in undiluted glycerine. Animals not suited for these purposes 

 have been almost entirely neglected, and I have directed far more 

 attention to experiments with species easily procured than to making 

 a complete and accurately named collection of those living on the coast. 

 Though I have a large amount of the above-named preparations, show- 

 ing the general character of the animals extremely well, they are some- 

 times not suitable for specific identification, since they cannot be turned 

 about or dissected, and the characteristic structure may be lost or hidden. 

 In connection with the distribution of the animals along the coast 

 it must be borne in mind that living on the yacht has led to the special 

 study of places where the anchorage was secure and where we could 

 obtain what is necessary, and to the neglect of other localities open to 

 objection from a yachtsman's point of view. Since my collecting has 

 thus been done from the side of the water the rarity or abundance of 

 particular species may probably appear different to what it would be to 

 any one collecting from the shore. There are also great changes from 



69 



